On The Mechanics Of Flight

Okay Internet, I still haven't got the picture for Day 3 of my 30 Days of Challenge posting schedule, but I swear that it's coming. Instead I need to let you know that I will be in Sydney tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday for a three day conference on programming for the iOS (iPod/iPad/iPhone devices, etc.) This means that, apart from spending the hours between 9am and 5pm learning about something I already know (I am using it as a refresher course...) I get to go to Kinokinya, Ichiban Boshi, Galaxy World, and all of the places that I've missed going to on my weekends when I lived in Sydney.

Hells To The Ramen Based Yeah!

The reason I'm posting about this, however, is because I'm actually a little scared/stressed. Okay, a little is not entirely the correct work. I am actually very very nervous about this trip. The fact that I'm going to a workshop in the city is, in itself, no big issue - I've been to conferences before, after all, and I know how to be a good emissary for my employer. No, the issue is the fact that, in order to get to Sydney, the uni wants me to fly. This stems from the fact that I cannot drive, I lack both the capacity (I haven't got a license) as well as the ability (I just...can't drive.) I offered to catch a train - after all, it would be cheaper for the university, and I really don't mind having to stay an extra night and spend an extra 3 hours travelling to do this - but no, they insisted that I fly. So now I have to wake up at about 4:30 tomorrow, in order to get on a plane to get to the city.

There's A Half Past Four In The MORNING Now?

This is a problem. Not only do I loathe having to get up early to do anything at all, but...well...Flying scares me. And it's not just one of those little "oh I have butterflies in my stomach because I'm slightly nervous" fear, no oh, it's more of a "Please physically help me onto this plane, oh why god why did I agree to this?" fear. It's not the thing I'm afraid of most, mind you, but it does rank up there - for those keeping score it's just below bodies of water where I can't see or touch the bottom, and just above clowns. I know that my fear should be irrational - people fly all the time, and nothing bad happens...but still...I just can't move past it.

What makes me afraid of flight? It is most certainly not the thought that the flight may be high-jacked - who cares about a domestic regional flight from Bathurst to Sydney anyway? It is, ostensibly, the fact that I am travelling in a giant metal construct that is fuelled by a highly combustible substance, far enough above the planet that one can look down onto clouds, with absolutely no protective mechanisms (such as parachutes) prepared for the event that something were to go wrong.

People have, at various times, informed me that more people are killed in car accidents per year than in incidences involving flight. This does not serve its intended purpose, however, of calming me down. Instead, this does one of two things - if I am wearing my irrational hat, then I start to become worried about driving and flying, as being in cars over long distances already makes me "butterflies" nervous, unless I really know/trust the driver. This irrationality does not happen very often, however, and is not prone to lasting for any extended period of time. The second scenario, where I wear my rational hat, is much more common. This involves me informing my comforter that I have analysed the maths behind their statistics already, and have discovered that the values they use are not normalised, making their point invalid. I then usually have to rephrase and state that their facts don't take into account the fact that there are significantly more people driving than flying.

Your Use Of Maths Is A Joke!

What annoys me the most, however, is that I understand how flight works. I get that the wings are specifically shaped to generate the best lift, which, in turn, keeps the plane airborne. I know that the wings have to generate significant lift to overcome the weight of the plane and its contents. I understand that the plane uses the viscosity of the air it moves through in an attempt to turn the resistance it encounters into a force for goodliness and keeping-the-aircraft-in-flight-itude. All of the parts of the plane sit there, they hurtle through the air, they work together. Newton's second law is in heavy practice.

Why does this knowledge not comfort me? It's not like the whole "bodies of water" thing I mentioned above, where the fear comes from the fact that I simply don't know what's down there beneath me (in the case of not being able to see the bottom, anyway) and it's not like the whole clowns thing, where I scared myself by reading tales of John Gacy and the like, combined with the fact that there is nothing real about a clown - their facial expression is painted on, for carrot's sake...Why does knowing that turbulence is just a change in relative air density which causes the aircraft to be shifted rapidly up or down in accordance with the relative thermodynamic rules make it no less worrying?

In This House We Obey The Laws Of Thermodynamics

The moral of this story is that I honestly cannot believe that there is something that I miss about Sydney, that isn't Roo, Shibby, Andy, or one of the other few people I know who lives there. Really. I was never very happy when I lived there - it was so big and...just...it did not feel like home. It was weird. Still, I find it quite strange now that I miss certain things about it. I don't miss the hustle/bustle, of course, but I do miss some of the more awesome stores, the convenience of various things, and...well...I guess that I need to invent teleporters so I can have that convenience at my fingertips all time time.